Dutch vet fights the EU orgy of slaughter

The policy against foot and mouth vaccination is under pressure, writes Charles Clover in Arnhem

12:01AM BST 07 Sep 2001

PETER POLL, a small animals vet recalled from retirement during Holland's foot and mouth outbreak, is an unlikely revolutionary. But the uprising he has begun could end the orgy of slaughter that is Europe's way of fighting the disease.

Dr Poll, 68, worked for the Dutch government during the vaccination and slaughter of 260,000 animals in Holland after an outbreak of cases on 26 farms last March.

But he now says that if the policy of slaughtering vaccinated animals remained, he would not do so again.

Dr Poll is not alone. He and 10 other vets have tabled a motion for a meeting of the Royal Dutch Veterinary Association on Oct 6 warning that the profession would go on strike if slaughter on the scale seen this year - 10,000 animals per case of infection, compared with 1,900 per case in Britain - were called for again.

To Dr Poll's delight, his motion has been accepted by his professional body with one small amendment. It is likely to win majority support.

The vets' revolt has stiffened the resolve of the Dutch government, which is already seeking - with the support of Holland's main farming union - to persuade Brussels to change the rules governing the eradication of the disease to allow vaccinated animals to live and their meat and milk to be consumed.

Vaccination has proved popular in Holland as it stopped the foot and mouth outbreak in two weeks. But the subsequent slaughter of thousands of inoculated but healthy animals has caused widespread revulsion.

Unlike in Britain, where the Government's policy of all-out slaughter has met with only muted criticism from the RSPCA, the slaughter drew criticism from animal welfare groups.

The EU's Standing Veterinary Committee currently rules that vaccination may be used to damp down outbreaks. But all vaccinated animals must be slaughtered, or a year must elapse, before trade with other countries may resume.

In Holland, which exports 60 per cent of its livestock products to other parts of the EU, the tough decision was taken with the agreement of farmers' leaders to slaughter all vaccinated animals so the country's lucrative export trade - it is the principal supplier of pork to Germany - could recommence. Trade resumed on June 26, three months after the last case.

The original decision to vaccinate was taken by the Dutch government shortly after the disease was found on March 12 in a group of calves from Ireland, which had stayed in the same pen as a group of sheep from an infected British farm.

All animals within half a mile of the outbreak, near the village of Oene near the eastern city of Apeldoorn, were culled.

Then, after consulting Brussels, the government introduced a half-mile ring around the infected areas. When the focus of infection was identified, the vaccination area was extended again.

The decision to vaccinate was taken partly to "damp down" the outbreak and partly because the government foresaw difficulties disposing of thousands of carcasses all at once.

It chose vaccination so it could kill the animals in slaughterhouses instead of on farms and dispose of them through rendering plants.

The result, though tastefully removed from public sight, was carnage on a scale five times greater per case than in Britain. There were riots when officials notified farmers they would have their livestock vaccinated and then slaughtered.

Dr Poll, who learned his impeccable English as a veterinary officer in Burma, spent the Dutch outbreak checking for clinical signs of the disease. He went on to supervise the culling when it was transferred to slaughterhouses.

After two weeks he asked to be excused. "When I had finished that awful business I said it is now time for reflection," he said.

He added: "It was time to say: 'We have co-operated loyally when it was war, but now it is peacetime we must say this is an unacceptable policy.' "

He says that with the immense increase in movement of people, goods and animals, it is doubtful if the EU's 1991 decision to ban vaccination is still justified.

It was assumed then that paying to slaughter in the event of an outbreak every 10 years would be cheaper than the cost of vaccinating as a matter of course; the cost of slaughter and disposal has turned out to be five times higher than assumed.

The Dutch Farmers' Union is equally adamant that the policy of vaccination and slaughter must be abandoned.

Siamyjan Schenk, the chairman of the union's cattle division, said: "It is an ethical problem. We have a system that means very large numbers of animals have to be destroyed. We have had many complaints.

"It is possible we could have more outbreaks in Europe in the next six months and we would have to kill many more." He believes that Britain should vaccinate around the centres of infection or the disease risks carrying on into next year.

The Dutch Farmers' Union is seeking support from other countries to allow animals vaccinated in a future emergency to live and their meat and milk to be traded throughout the EU.

Farmers concede this would have major implications, such as an end to the trade in livestock products with America.

Jan Markink, a pig farmer and chairman of the union's pig division in the region where the disease broke out, said: "European trade with the United States is perhaps five or six per cent of the market. Losing five or six per cent of trade is better than losing all of it with each other."

Though his union favours a more limited form of vaccination than the inoculation of all cloven-hoofed creatures called for by Dr Poll, Mr Markink agreed with him, over a drink in an Arnhem pub, that the killing seen in Holland and Britain in recent months should not be repeated.

But he was realistic enough to admit that it could take years for the Dutch to persuade their fellow Europeans they are right.